How to Stop Getting Angry as a Coach﻿

Unwilling
to Change

My
high school basketball coach’s temper was legendary. He would pull players out
of the game when they made a mistake, and then rip into them right in front of
a packed gym. But, even more legendary to his players were the verbal barrages
he would unleash upon the team at half-time and the end of the game. As a junior,
I had come to understand and accept this was just how my coach was, and I could
expect that from him every game.

I
remember a game in my junior season when he wasn’t himself. He wasn’t doing a
whole lot of yelling, and we weren’t playing well, either. Something was up.

When
we made it to halftime, as I headed to the locker room, we all were very unsure
about my coach’s reserved first-half behavior. He hadn’t said much during the
game, but he looked redder and more pissed than ever, ready to come undone. Before
we could even sit down, he slammed the locker room door, and the volcano
exploded.

“I
tried! I tried to be nice and encouraging!” he said. “People tell me I am too
hard on you boys, and so I try to not to yell, and what happens? You go out
there and screw around! You play like a bunch of lazy bums.” As he paced around
the room, suddenly, his eyes set upon me. “And you play scared! You play like a p***y!”

I knew his comments were directed at me, the “weak boy” who couldn’t handle the screaming and criticism. My head wanted to drop between my knees, but I knew losing eye contact would only result in more anger and fury.

“Well,”
he continued, “I am done trying to change. I can’t change; this is who I am! So,
you’d better learn to toughen up and man up, because it isn’t going to get any
easier.”

He
was right. It never did get any easier.

Anger: The
Emotional Tip of the Iceberg

Psychologists
often use the metaphor of an iceberg to illustrate anger. 90% of an iceberg’s
mass is under water. Anger is just the tip of the iceberg; underneath the water
is something a lot bigger, some other physical or emotional pain. Before we
feel angry, we feel something else—the primary feeling. Anger is the secondary
feeling or emotion.

Coaching is an emotional profession. We experience a lot of emotions; one being the very powerful feeling of not being enough. As I have mentioned in past articles (The Coaching Identity Crisis), many of us easily find our identity and self-worth in our team’s achievement and performance, so when things don’t go well, they are making us look bad.

Our default response to these feelings of inadequacy, shame, and unworthiness is anger. We choose anger because it is how we have been coached and parented into reacting. We have to intentionally retrain our response to better serve people and be more authentic in who we are.

This
Isn’t Who You Are; You Can Change

My high school coach’s
statement, “I can’t change; this is who I am,” is problematic for many reasons:

Unwillingness to Grow: “I can’t change.” If you are unwilling to learn and
grow—unwilling to change, like my coach was—then how can you expect your
players to change? The irony of my experience as a player was that my coach
wanted me to change, be mentally tougher, be more in control of my emotions,
and be a better communicator. All the while, he had this unbridled anger he would
use to lash out at young men.

Cycle of Destructive Behaviors: The other sad part of my experience was I fell
into similar behaviors. While I was never “as bad as he was”, that became a
justification for my behavior as a coach. Coaches love to talk about how easy
players have it today, and how, in their day, they got it way worse. This talk
is just unconsciously justifying their anger and poor treatment of players.

False Authenticity: “This is just who I am.” We hear this a lot from people who provide
excuses for their behavior. When I would get angry and lose my temper on the
sideline, I would excuse this as just being myself. I thought, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I felt I
was being authentic, but just like my coach, I used anger to mask the
real emotions I was feeling. I was far from presenting an authentic and true
version of myself to the team.

When I am
authentic and true to myself, I will never become less than my best. When I am
authentic and true to myself, I won’t do anything that will harm myself or
anyone else. In fact, when I am true to who I am as a person, I help myself and
everyone else become better versions of themselves.

Take
Action

“Our culture
has taught you that, as a young man, you can never authentically show any
feeling other than anger. Unfortunately, anger is a secondary emotion. It
always comes from something else. But, showing anything else is seen as
weakness. So, your two choices are to be seen as weak or to get angry.”

—Joshua Medcalf

This article
isn’t meant to be a counseling session; rather, it is an encouragement to do a
few things:

Ask: “Where is this anger coming from? What is the primary feeling or
emotion?”

Remember: “I am coaching people, not objects. These people have wants,
needs, and desires that are no less important than my own.”

Act: Respond in accordance with
your principles and values, not your feelings or circumstances.